"There is no greatness where simplicity, goodness and truth
are absent."
Leo Tolstoy

Friday, September 30, 2011

Living In An Insular Universe

Republicans despise Paul Krugman. -- which is really not surprising. The official position of the Republican Party on any issue is denial. They are truly living in the Twilight Zone. Since 2000, Krugman writes, Americans have witnessed:

the party’s broader slide into its own insular
intellectual universe. Large segments of the G.O.P. reject climate
science and even the theory of evolution, so why expect evidence to
matter for the party’s economic views?

And so, everything is President Obama's fault.

Never mind the fact that the housing bubble, the debt explosion and the
financial crisis took place on the watch of a conservative,
free-market-praising president; it’s that Democrat in the White House
now who gets the blame.

Republicans argue that it does not help their cause to analyze the reasons for their country's economic problems. What they seek is not solutions but power. And it's good politics to blame Obama for the crisis they caused. The strategy could work -- if the public's increasingly short memory gets shorter.

But good politics can be very bad policy. The truth is that we’re in this
mess because we had too little regulation, not too much. And now one of
our two major parties is determined to double down on the mistakes that
caused the disaster.

4 comments:

Hi Owen. I posted a bit today on a Baylor U survey of some troubling beliefs held by the radical religious right, both ordinary Americans and their elected officials. You know Adam Smith's "invisible hand" of the marketplace? They figure that's the hand of god. They basically have the same variety of theo-fatalism we commonly ascribe to Muslims - "Allah's Will" and all that. They see no need for science or facts when, after all, everything is in god's hands.

It will be interesting to see what kinds of response you get, Mound. I'm sure the faculty at Baylor is above such foolishness. But I'm also sure that there are fools in the neighbourhood.

When I was a student in North Carolina, a fellow told me that segregation had been sanctioned in the Old Testament. After Cain killed Abel, he said, God sent Cain and his descendents into the Land of Nod, where he put the mark of Cain on them.

The land of Nod was Africa, he said, and the mark of Cain was a black skin -- the result of God's descion to turn former Caucasians' skins black.

All black people were descendents of Cain, he said; and, therefore, all righteous people should keep their distance.

People attempt to justify anything and everything by claiming divine sanction.

I believe what you're referring to, Owen, was behind the Mormons' policy of prohibiting blacks from holding office in the LDS church. As Mitt Romney points out, his church officially abandoned that in the late 70's. I'm guessing his church got word their tax exempt status could be at risk on a civil rights violation.

About Me

A retired English teacher, I now write about public policy and, occasionally, personal experience. I leave it to the reader to determine if I practice what I preached to my students for thirty-two years.